Constable: Mere hope of a Powerball win worth $2

I'm thinking of the name of some random person in the United States. It can be the name of any athlete, movie star, celebrity, friend, family member, co-worker, stranger, woman, man, child, newborn or somebody older than 100. And the only hint you get is that the person of whom I'm thinking does not live in Virginia.

Did you guess the name of the person I'm thinking of?

Nope. Of course not. The odds against you in that scenario are 292.2 million to 1. And yet, millions of Americans are plunking down good money to participate in Wednesday's Powerball lottery with the same odds of winnings.

The hope that you will buy a winning ticket is so misplaced. I've been in Wrigley Field many times when the Cubs give away a pizza to a fan sitting in a lucky seat drawn at random. Not only have I never been sitting in that lucky seat, I've never been sitting in the same row or even the same section as the lucky seat. Your odds of winning Wednesday's lottery are so much worse than winning a pizza at Wrigley.

In fact, your lottery odds are the same as being the lucky fan in a Wrigley Field pizza giveaway — if the Cubs sold out every seat in Wrigley Field for every game for the next 87 years and gave away only one pizza to a lucky winner in the year 2102.

But hope is such a powerful human feeling that we are willing to overlook the facts.

And we don't just welcome unrealistic hope solely for our dreams of winning $1.4 billion or so.

Singer, songwriter and versatile genius David Bowie died Sunday night, 18 months after being diagnosed with cancer. We all know someone with the same or similar diagnosis. But we don't just hear that news and write off our loved one as dead. We search for and cling to some hope.

In 2009, when my brother, Bill, was diagnosed with bile-duct cancer at age 47, doctors told us he'd be dead in eight months.

He proved them wrong. He made it nine months and died at age 48.

Doctors knew the odds and didn't pull punches. Bill and our family knew they were probably right. But we couldn't abandon all hope. Even in the face of overwhelming odds, hope can bring some comfort.

There were times when a well-meaning friend's overly optimistic assurances that Bill would beat the cancer odds irritated me and maybe even ticked off my brother. But in hindsight, misguided hope didn't make anything worse. It even boosted our spirits on those times when the chemo actually shrunk a tumor or Bill felt a little better than the day before. Even short-lived, unrealistic hope is better than no hope at all.

Poet Emily Dickinson once wrote:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops — at all

And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm

I've heard it in the chillest land

And on the strangest Sea

Yet — never — in Extremity

It asked a crumb — of me.

Hope, even when it's inspired only by the desire to win a billion bucks, can warm the soul. You aren't going to win the Powerball lottery, but a few hours of getting comfortable with hope might be worth buying a $2 ticket.